


Nevertheless, She Excelled

by LaughingThalia



Series: Orville Coda [6]
Category: The Orville (TV)
Genre: Episode: S2E1 Ja'loja, Mother-Son Relationship, Robots, Single Parents, Underage Drinking, Women In Power
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-03
Updated: 2019-01-03
Packaged: 2019-10-03 16:11:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17287280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaughingThalia/pseuds/LaughingThalia
Summary: --“Isaac, am I a good parent?”--...--His mother allowed Isaac to stand there constantly; there in the background observing their family, his family, like they were some kind of science experiment and Marcus didn't like it one bit.--





	Nevertheless, She Excelled

**Author's Note:**

> It's been a while. I never got round to doing the rest of Season 1 during the break but I do have some ideas, and I'll go back eventually. Hopefully before this season ends. The title is obviously a play on Nevertheless, she persisted and I'm just now realising what a weird word nevertheless is like WTF?
> 
> Also S2E1 actually is getting 2 codas, the other one is multi-chapter and more fleshing out a fan theory about Lt Janel Tyler that I saw on reddit and on the Orville Wikia which I think has the possibility of being real.

Marcus didn't like Isaac. He didn't understand why his mom and Ty seemed to love him. Ty said he was cool, mom always seemed slightly exasperated with him but she let him hang around their house and tail her around like a lost puppy. He just didn't get it.

 

Not only was he confused that his mother allowed Isaac to stand there constantly; there in the background observing their family, _his family_ , like they were some kind of science experiment but he was angry. How dare this robot come into his house and try to give his mother parenting tips, teach his brother the piano, try and look after them somehow like he was their father or something.

 

He remembered when he'd gone to Jamies' house for the first time, what his mom had said to him, _“I have such respect for your mother,”_ but all he saw was pity _“she's so brave, managing to raise two kids on her own.”_

 

Doctor Claire Finn didn't just manage, she excelled and all the other parents looked down on her despite her being higher ranked, better qualified and better parents than all of them combined. She didn't need anyone else to help her look after her kids and yet- and yet there he was trying to do just that. As if a damn toaster oven could even try to understand everything his mom did.

 

“Just talk to me.” His mother looked at him from across the little coffee table in their living room, he looked back at the shiny metal Cyberman settled in their living room along side the furniture as if he belonged there and then looked back at his mom, she went to sit next to him but he'd be damned if he'd let Isaac collect any information on their interactions, even if he was already in trouble, trouble be damned. He moved away from his mom and tried to ignore the flash of hurt behind her brown eyes.

 

How could she be so smart in so many other things and not see that Isaac was only there to 'observe' to gather readings and report back to his homeworld, it wasn't like he hid it, it was his whole reason for being on The USS Orville so why was no one more cautious around him?

 

And then his mother had mentioned that Isaac was accompanying her to the parent-teacher meeting. His mother was going to a parent teacher meeting with a robot. What did that mean? That she was in love with him? Was this bot that he despised his new stepfather? And what would Jody and Nathan Duncan would think when they saw the two of them together at a parent-teacher conference _'I guess she couldn't do it on her own. Being a single parent is too hard and she had to get her kids a robot to fill the void, that's why Marcus hacked the food synthesiser and drank that Vodka and dragged my poor little innocent Jamie along with him.'_

 

\-----

 

It was only after mom had told him what had happened in the meeting that it occurred to him that his mom kept him around because he was actually his friend. And maybe, just maybe Isaac was their friend too. He was starting to see what Ty saw in this bing hunk of metal.

 


End file.
